The other difference is that the Hurricanes don't have a large, dormant fanbase waiting for signs that the franchise is finally willing to pull itself out of the depths. Outside of maybe a season and a half's worth of bump around the Cup win 12 years ago, this is what they've got.

I also remember reading around the time of the sale that, unlike pretty much every other Southern expansion team, Peter Karmanos never put any effort into "grow the game" efforts like building youth leagues and rinks. So there's no forthcoming generation in the Triangle with increased interest in hockey, unless the Hurricanes magically become consistently top-tier.

Long story short Pete Karmanos sideways with a rake.

As someone who lives in Raleigh, Tom Dundon actually does appear to be...TRYING to make things better. Even the Hurricanes banners around PNC Arena got replaced this offseason; I swear the last ones had been there since the Canes won the Cup.

In fact, the team just had fans vote on a goal song, in which the finalists were Raise Up by Petey Pablo (NORTH CAROLINA!) and a techno remix of Brass Bonanza.

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You know, I saw Rocky Wirtz at an IceHogs game last year. He is by far the NHL's most rectangle-shaped owner. I can never decide whether his clumsy, desultory attempts at crying poor are infuriating or just endearingly pathetic. It says a lot about his dad and his peers that the scion of a crooked liquor-distribution concern is easily among the NHL's least evil and incompetent owners.

Anyway, here's Ryan Lambert getting torn between sucking off David Poile and New South NHL teams (they're the opposite of Canadian teams, which are Actually Bad) and supporting victims of convicted abusers:

1. The Predators cap situation again somehow

How much money do you think Ryan Ellis left on the table here? I’m gonna say at least $1.5 million a season against the cap. And the fact that he got no trade protection and only $7 million in bonus money? And that’s after he already played with a huge hometown discount contract (a $2.5 million AAV? c’mon man) for FIVE years.

That’s truly incredible to me. But it shows the amount of buy-in this group has, and how much signing one or two good deals for non-stars trickles down to everyone in the lineup.

Obviously they still have to re-sign Roman Josi and that’s a guy who could get expensive, but if you pay him about the same amount of money for about the same number of years as Ellis, you have an entire top four of Subban, Josi, Ekholm, and Ellis signed for the next four seasons at a combined cap hit that looks like this:

$19.25 million for 2018-19

$23 million for 2019-20

$25.5 million for both 2020-21 and 2021-22

Those last two are assuming Josi signs for $6.5 million. Which I guess sounds about right but might be a little high given his age when his new deal starts. Anything in that range, though, would be a steal.

I don’t know how they keep doing it but they are. Pretty amazing.

(Not ranked this week: Forgetting about the other more important stuff.

Of course, I can’t fully support the Preds at this time because Austin Watson is still allowed to be part of the team even though you should be able to easily boot a guy for pleading no contest on charges of beating up his wife. Any mention of “Ah the Preds did a good thing,” it’s also important to say, “And also the Austin Watson thing majorly sucks.”

I know dumbasses are gonna say “stick to sports” or “it’s not relevant when talking about other stuff with the club, but if they cut a single paycheck to Watson this season, it should be a mega mega mega scandal that gets talked about all year.

For as good as they are on the ice, and all the good management they’ve done building this roster, there’s no defending the kinds of things David Poile has done with respect to Watson and Mike Ribeiro. It’s really gross. You hate to root for a team this good to fail, but here we are.)

What an amazing organization! (Footnote: oops didn't mean to)

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What I really don't like almost as much is this mentality that has overtaken sports in that if someone makes the worth-strong-punishment mistake of physically abusing other people, that they deserve to be tarred and feathered and kicked out of the sport forever. You don't have to like people who do something disgusting like that but jeezus mother Christ the idea of anyone ever getting a second chance might as well not even exist anymore. One strike (pun not intended) and that's it.

And I hate that I have to write this paragraph I'm writing right now because I know if I didn't there would be some moron(s) out there who would interpret this as if I don't think domestic abuse is a problem. Which it is! Of course it is. And serial abusers absolutely deserve to be kicked out of their leagues. But, my g-d, we get the pitchforks out and want these people gone when they've committed one mistake and I just think it's absurd, gross overreacting. We can want these people to get duly punished without stripping them of their livelihoods. At least, I would think we could.

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It's case-by-case. Slava Voynov should be out of the league for good given the enormity of what he did. And if the case against Patrick Kane hadn't been fabricated to shake him down (sorry to the rape truthers hanging in there), he'd probably be in prison right now. I don't really need Watson in the league at all costs nor do I need him out at all costs, but I'm not the loudly performative male feminist here, Lambert is.

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I've said before that I'm done looking to sports leagues for justice. I'm not mad that the NFL only wanted to suspend Ray Rice for two games; I'm mad that the county let him off with just counseling. I'm not mad that Zach Smith wasn't fired earlier; I'm mad that he was never charged with a crime. On the most recent episode of BASS, the guys talked about how messed up it is that people in a football program run to the coach when they should run to the police. I feel like the public is doing the same thing by focusing on how the NFL/OSU/NHL/NBA is going to respond to something when we should be wondering what police and courts and district attorneys are going to do about it.

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I know I can't talk about the p-word, but because liberals have failed and then been failed by their government by letting thousands of elections go the wrong way, the only real hope for justice is through a loose shadow government of industries where liberals reign: entertainment, media, advertising. We can't trust judges, but we can trust Adam Silver. Maybe.

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Compare these press releases about NBC(SN) pickups for some world-class Perding. We're all used to Pierre McGuire masturbating over teams, but this is the first documented instance of a team masturbating all over Pierre McGuire.

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In conjunction with the National Hockey League and NBC Sports, the Chicago Blackhawks today announced their 2018-19 regular-season national television schedule. Nationally, the Blackhawks will appear exclusively on NBC (including NBC and NBCSN) 11 times.

Additionally, the Blackhawks will appear in eight non-exclusive nationally televised games, totaling a league-high 19 national appearances. The Blackhawks' first nationally televised game is scheduled for Wednesday, November 14 vs. St. Louis at 7:00 p.m. on NBCSN.

Additionally, the game time for the Tuesday, November 27 game vs. Vegas changed to a 7:00 p.m. start and the Thursday, January 3 game at New York Islanders changed to a 6:30 p.m. start. The full schedule of nationally televised games for the 2018-19 season is below. The local television schedule will be announced at a later date in conjunction with the Blackhawks' exclusive rightsholders, NBC Sports Chicago and WGN-TV.

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After seeing a record nine games on national television last season, the Predators have obliterated the number once more and are set to appear on the networks of NBC for 12 games in 2018-19.

Nashville will play one game on NBC and 11 more on NBCSN, the maximum combined number of exclusive games allowed for one team across this single season.

The appearances begin right away on Oct. 4 as the Predators visit the New York Rangers on NBCSN in the first game of the season for both clubs. Nashville then appears two more times before the month of October concludes, hosting San Jose on the 23rd and Vegas one day before Halloween.

...

With the national spotlight being cast on Smashville more than ever before, fans attending those games at Bridgestone Arena will once more help to create the atmosphere that has now become famous around the hockey world as the best in the NHL.

"With the impressive growth of fan interest in non-traditional NHL markets combined with the emergence of a number of rising stars, we felt the time was right to broaden our Wednesday night schedule and evolve the brand," Executive Producer & President, Production, NBC Sports and NBCSN Sam Flood said via press release. "Fans will still see plenty of games between traditional powers, but our new approach to Wednesday nights - including a record number of doubleheaders - allows us to show more rising stars and more Western Conference and Canadian teams than ever before."

Rising stars on Western Conference teams? Say no more. It's clear why the Preds will see 12 games on the national docket this season.

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With the national spotlight being cast on Smashville more than ever before, fans attending those games at Bridgestone Arena will once more help to create the atmosphere that has now become famous around the hockey world as the best in the NHL. [citation needed]